


steady hands

by Balthuza



Category: Shards of the Sun
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 20:54:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11722377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Balthuza/pseuds/Balthuza
Summary: He does not remember the first time he sits in his mother's lap, making a mess of an embroidery she half finished, letting her nimble fingers guide his clumsy ones.





	steady hands

He does not remember the first time he sits in his mother's lap, making a mess of an embroidery she half finished, letting her nimble fingers guide his clumsy ones. It is a while before his works are good enough to sell on the market, but the first coin he ever makes is a talisman he carries around for years. 

 

The old lord is dead, long live the new lord. He is much younger than Dross ever remembers seeing a noble. He sees him while standing in midst of a crowd of the festival, a young man all steel and gold, on a horse brown like a chestnut. The coat of arms on his back is orange and green, and when their eyes meet Dross can feel his heart skip a beat. 

 

Dross is young, wild and charmed by how confident and self assured the lord is. He laughs at his mother's heavy sighs and sneaks out in the middle of the night to  seek him in the moonlight and comes back grinning like an idiot. 

 

The noble is growing older between one blink and another, his first wife becomes a second, and soon there are others that draw Dross’ eyes. The lord, no longer young and no longer sweet stops carrying the shawl with his coat embroidered upon it, and Dross takes offense hard enough to go home without a word, ignoring an outstretched hand. 

 

At first there are gifts and sweet words, send on a perfumed vellum. Then there are warnings hidden in a layer of candy, then the words are harsh and cold, unforgiving. 

Dross is still young and wild, believing in his own immortality, untouchable in his pride. 

 

He does not expect soldiers in his home, he does not expect the lord, all steel and gold, a sword in his hand and his mother's hands on the floor, blood pooling underneath her, the cries deafening. Then there is a hilt of a sword hitting him in the side of his head, and the last thing he hears is that his hands will be next, soon. 

 

When he wakes up the sun is gone, and so is his mother. There is a pool of blood on the floor, sticking to his hands, clumping his hair, covering his clothes. 

The house is empty, still and quiet, and Dross grabs first things he can reach - a blanket, an embroidery kit and some colorful threads, and runs outside. 

 

He does not find her and does not go back. It is a week before his money runs dry and he sits with the needle, trying to make a living, realising his hands shake too much to do anything, and he has to resort to begging for food from a random temple. 

A month later the tremor does not stop. 

A year later a cleric tells him that this sometimes happens, after you get hit in the head very hard, and just spreads his hands as an answer when asked when will it go away. 

 

Years later, with a sword in his hand, not a needle, Dross is back where home once was, the village looking a bit worn on the edges, but still standing, and the lord is just there, all steel and gold, hair peppered with silver like moonlight, barking orders, never looking if they are followed, like nothing else could happen, like no one would dare to say no. There is a young man in the crowd, and Dross was,  _ is _ , broken enough to know his look and right now he's half sure he is projecting himself on the boy. 

 

There is a new chainmail underneath his clothes and an amulet on top. In his bags are reports showing the greed and cruelty he doesn't know why he never saw (he knows why - it was how it has always been, a dog is grateful for a scrap from the table, even when he sees a feast laid upon it). 

 

He grabs the hilt of the sword hard enough to make his knuckles white, and follows his new companions into the village, the rune of pursuit on his chest gleaming silver in the sun. 

 


End file.
